Raising voices

Raising voices

I speak to raise diverse voices

I speak because I want to be heard. I speak because I think society needs to hear what I have to say.

• I speak because we need more diverse voices in society.
• I speak because, when I speak, I give other voices permission to speak.
• I speak because it is my responsibility to use the privilege I do have, to raise the voices of people more deeply oppressed than I am.
• I speak to raise equality, through a deeper understanding of lives that are not mine.

Part of a global network

“The When Women Speak moment is a global network of women coming together on and offline; to listen, be heard and share their stories, because when women speak, extraordinary things happen. When women speak from a place within, we unleash potential; an unstoppable resolve that can move mountains, offer comfort, create a masterpiece, and live a life of integrity and authenticity.”

What is this going to be?

Raising diverse voices is a project born out of the “When Women Speak” movement. It offers spaces and stages for diverse voices to speak. What you are there to say does not matter. What matters is that you speak, and that you can be heard. For now I have two things in mind:

• an online membership group, where you are empowered, guided and held in a space that lets you speak more, and differently, and in new ways, with very little effort — and where you can listen to diversity
• events, wherever I feel inclined to hold one, on whatever subject diversity brings to me

Who is it for?

When women speak, diversity happens

I am a “When Women Speak” leader: one of a global network of women leading others to speak, to listen, and to be heard.

I am not excluding male voices. I am not excluding people of any gender. That is not the point; it would be entirely against the point. Bear with me.

As our society currently stands, whatever steps we have taken towards gender equality, cis male voices are heard far more, validated far more, valued far more, and carry far more influence. That shapes how every single part of society works. It means there is a continuing, pervasive, embedded gender bias — along with plenty of other significant biases I am not blind to — in literally every part of how we live. Female voices, and messages attributed to a female perspective, are valued less, seen and heard less, and ridiculed, simply for being female.

When Women Speak Global Network

I believe that elevating the voices of people who are under-represented gives us a better society for everyone, through proper representation. If everything we have built so far has been shaped by one section of society, then something has to change.